In a system including a plurality of diverse semiconductor manufacturing
facilities, each of the facilities having a respective manufacturing
process requiring semiconductor specific design information in a
corresponding diverse format, a method for supplying data to each of the
facilities in an appropriate format includes establishing a database for
each of the plurality of facilities, the database identifying the
appropriate format for each of the facilities. The method also includes
receiving semiconductor specific design information and converting the
design information in accordance with the appropriate format for one of
selected ones of the facilities. The method further includes providing a
respective tapeout to said one of the selected ones of the facilities,
each tapeout comprising the design information formatted in the
appropriate format for the respective facility receiving the tapeout.